Any thoughts on rarity?

A book of eleven of William Channings Tracts.

It's unique. Most of them are from 1810s to 1830s.

I don't see any original tracts listed for sale at used.addall.com.

Not sure how much its kosher to discus price on here since I rarely see it, but I'm thinking it's worth over $500 to the right buyer.

Unique. No publisher listed as there is no title page. Contains Eleven of William Ellery.Channing's Unitarian tracts. These are rare today, as at the time they were probably often destroyed by people that rejected the claims of Unitarianism. There were books against Unitarianism shortly after its origin.

Bookplate of the "Parsonage Society of the Unitarian Society, Meadeville."
Hardcover. Half-leather. Marble boards with leather spine and corner tips. Front hinge is cracked but still attached. Has pen index on front endpaper and a small number on each section of the book that corresponds (1,2,3 up to 11). Textblock otherwise is firm and mostly clean very good-plus condition over all condition of tracts except for a few small stains.

 

It appears that each of the tracts has an identified publisher. Do you mean that the binder is not identified?

Debora

 

Rare....is one way to cook meat...

 

I also see foxing.

Debora

 

Yes.

 

There is no foxing on the whole of the book but occasional spots as can be seen in the photos. Not all spots in old books are considered foxing. The majority of the pages are clear.

 

In case you are wondering...The handwriting on the title page of "A Discourse On Some of the Distinguishing Opinions of Unitarians" says "J Sparks ordination." I just found that this was a speech given during the installation ceremony of Jared Sparks as a minister at the First Independent (Unitarian) church in Baltimore. Sparks was quite well known as a scholar. He later became president of Harvard University, and was also later a publisher of The North American Review (a distinguished early magazine in America and still published today... but now very different from the 19th century version). Since your copy was the twelfth edition, published 17 years after the delivery of the discourse, I don't think the note about Sparks adds any value to the piece. It's just that somebody wanted to make note of it. Here is a biographical page about Sparks: https://snaccooperative.org/view/41398169

A previous owner has had all of these tracts bound together. The binding was done some time after the date of the latest published tract. One guess is that the binding was commissioned by the organization whose bookplate is inside. It could have also been done by an earlier owner and the organization acquired it later and placed their bookplate inside.

You wondered about rarity. It might be rare to find a volume with all of the particular tracts bound together. That wouldn't add value to it.The individual one mentioned above doesn't appear to be rare at all. Somebody would have to research the others to find whether any of them are rare (which wouldn't necessarily make them valuable, but the research would be a start).

 

Thanks for the comment on the signature.

There is not a single William Channing tract for sale on eBay or any online bookseller in the world according to used.addall.com. The definition of rarity is often if it can be bought in the present market.

Some of his tracts have several copies in libraries, others look like they do not. I'm still researching it.

You can find out about it here:

https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=Channing,William+tract&fq=&dblist=638&start=31&qt=page_number_link

 

Okay, as you like it. I was thinking because it was a 12th edition, 1836 and widely reprinted that the only one that might be valuable was the 1819 printing. So I misspoke (miswrote?) when I said there were a lot of them available. There are lots of "print on demand" versions for sale online. Hard to believe that somebody would buy one of those, but maybe only people who are only interested in the text itself.

Just now I found an interesting compilation similar to yours. It includes the Discourse we've been discussing. By any chance, does yours have the same items in it? Here is a link to the listing in abebooks. https://www.abebooks.com/Ellis-Gray-Lorings-Sammelband-Religious-pamphlets/22636401391/bd

Under the link is a listing of all of the items that are in that particular one. It says the spine of the binding is missing. Being sold by a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America.

 

Without a binder and publication date, this one is a bit of a challenge. Here are a couple of similar with asking prices.

LETTERS TO THE REV. WM. E. CHANNING, Containing Remarks on His Sermon Recently Preached and Published at Baltimore. / LETTERS ADDRESSED TO TRINITARIANS AND CALVINISTS, Occasioned by Dr. Woods' Letters to Unitarians. / A SERMON DELIVERED AT THE ORDINATION OF THE REV. JARED SPARKS, to the Pastoral Care of the First Independent Church in Baltimore, May 5, 1819 (1824, 1st edition, ex-library, $57)

Discourses, Reviews, and Miscellanies (1830, fair condition, $35)

Discourses (1832, 1st edition, Fine condition, $100)

 

Knowing a lot of completists in various collecting areas, such as vinyl records, there usually are people that will buy first or early editions, or even variations of later editions. I've met such people who would buy any serious variation of a certain artist's record. Since these are ephemera essentially, there aren't usually a lot of such items around. People were converted away from Unitarianism and opposed it. I have an early book from 19th Century of a Unitarian repenting of it and converting to a historic Biblical Christian faith. So I imagine people destroyed the books as that's a custom that's even in the Bible in the Book of Acts.

 

Addall is not the best tool for refined searches.

Here's one of your tracts on abebooks:
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Bo...centlyadded=all&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title6

and some similar - I did a search with Channing as author, unitarian as keyword, publication date of 1810-1835, used, not print-on-demand.
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Se...=17&sts=t&xdesc=off&xpod=on&yrh=1835&yrl=1810

It would not have been uncommon for a preacher or church to have a bunch of these bound together, so often you find old pamphlets 'disbound', lacking the original covers. Intact copies will be worth more. Obviously some of these went through numerous printings, so first printings will also be worth more.

Here's an ebay search for one of his more interesting later pamphlets illustrating this:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fr...1313&_nkw=channing+letter+henry+clay&_sacat=0

Channing was tremendously popular in his day, so there were at some point a lot on the dusty shelves of history, even if grumpy Calvinists did burn some. You'd want to look up each individual pamphlet to see what's out there - certainly there could be some of value, but it looks like these run $15-25 apiece, and without knowing something about what Unitarian collectors hold in high esteem, it'd be hard to justify more than maybe $250 for your collection. If there are any in there on abolition (anti-slavery), that's my bet on where the money is.